Wednesday, 27 March 2013

The end is in sight for Girls und Panzer's grand finale, but with Oorai still at a distinct tactical disadvantage, can they really hope to turn the tide in their favour?

With the appearance of what appears to be Kuromorimine's trump card, the behemoth known ironically as the Maus, things certainly aren't looking good for Miho and company, but then again we all know how the fight between David and Goliath ended... with this in mind, Oorai still have some impressive tricks up their sleeve, making full use of the tanks at their disposal with a view to turning the tide in their favour and taking out that pesky Maus.

From here, Miho has a clear plan to take the match into its end-game, and of course this involves manipulating the match into a clear-cut, one on one stand-off between Miho and her sister. With this achieved, does Miho have what it takes to surpass her family's much-vaunted style and win on her own terms for both herself and her friends? Of course she does, silly!

So ends Girls und Panzer in perfect fashion to close out what has been an almost perfect series - it might not have the emotional or story-telling depth of an Evangelion or Madoka, but it's still soomething of a masterpiece in its own by taking what is ultimately a rather ludicrous concept and crafting it into a beautiful ballet of massive weapons of destruction, humour, action and tension, and sprinkling it with enough character to make it compelling. In an age when so many series pour all of their focus into the characters, its been refreshing to see a series where the characters are often secondary to the real stars of the show, that being the tanks themselves. It's a risky decision but one that paid off massively here - the biggest question for me is whether I'd like to see a second season of the show; a question to which my heart answers yes, but my head responds with "it couldn't ever be this good a second time around".